Harris rallies support during first fundraiser: ‘We are the underdogs’

Attending her first fundraiser as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, Vice President Harris told a room of more than 800 people in Massachusetts that “we are the underdogs” to rally support for her new campaign.

“We got a fight ahead of us and we are the underdogs,” she said according to the National Public Radio. “But this is a people-powered campaign and we have momentum.”

Harris is expected to have raised more than $1.4 million from the fundraiser, according to the Associated Press. The fundraiser was only expected to raise close to $400,000 when it was originally scheduled when President Biden was still the Democratic nominee for president. 

According to the Associated Press, musician James Taylor and some of Massachusetts’ Democratic heavyweights attended, including the state’s senators, Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, former Gov. Deval Patrick and Rep. Richard Neal. 

Since taking over as the presumptive nominee earlier in the week, Harris has raised more than $120 million. In her first 24 hours as a candidate for president during the 2024 cycle, she raised more than $81 million, which is a record. 

Harris spoke at the fundraiser in Massachusetts as former President Trump crisscrossed the nation to speak at a Bitcoin conference in Nashville and a rally in Minnesota, where he said Harris “is a radical leftist lunatic” who would “be worse than Biden.” 

Trump has specifically pointed to Harris as being responsible for “ruining San Francisco” when she was the District Attorney for the city and said that she wants to “defund the police.”

“You may have noticed Donald Trump has been resorting to some wild lies about my record,” Harris said. 

During the fundraiser Harris also said the former president wants to take the country backward. 

“Let us make no mistake. This campaign is not just about us vs. Donald Trump,” Harris said. “As we fight to move our nation forward, Donald Trump intends to take our country backward.”

“I’ve been dealing with people like him my entire career,” she added. “So in this campaign, and I say in all seriousness, I will proudly put my record against his any day.”

She also specifically criticized vice presidential hopeful Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), after he has faced a week of negative headlines for his views on people without children and women’s rights. 

“Some of what he and his running mate are saying, it is just plain weird,” she said. “I mean that’s the box you put that in, right?”

Harris was repeating a line of attack first brought by Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a potential running mate for Harris, who called Trump and his running mate “weird” in an interview with MSNBC earlier in the week. 

Her campaign has taken up the line of attack, putting it out in press releases against the Trump campaign throughout the week, saying Trump has “buyer’s remorse” about picking Vance as his running mate.